


the blue line

by meng_ren



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 07:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6461050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meng_ren/pseuds/meng_ren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only Myungsoo's first day with his new partner Sungyeol, and he's already wondering if the other man is going to drive him insane on this wild goose chase to solve a decades-old crime.</p><p>[PolicePartners!AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	the blue line

It was an election year in Hyecheon, which made it arguably the worst type of year for the city. Except, of course, for every other year. The mayor had vowed to clean up the streets, which meant in effect that the police had to clean up the streets. For Trainee Detective Kim Myungsoo, rookie police officer who had just celebrated his first 500 days on the force, that meant unpaid overtime and sleepless nights sitting in a patrol car keeping an eye on the streets. During election season, even detectives did grunt work. And patrol duty was on top of the 500 day turnover.

Every 500 days, trainee detectives in the Hyecheon City Police Department were reassigned to a new partner.

He had been sad to see Detective Chae go. The relationship between a trainee detective and his first partner was supposed to be something special: mentorship, education, and reciprocity. These mentors were usually drawn from senior detectives, who were on the verge of being promoted to leadership or administrative ranks. The relationship between a trainee detective and his second partner, on the other hand, was supposed to be more acrimonious. The second partners were junior detectives, who needed assistance from the trainees as much as the other way around. This was a genuine partnership.

Detective Chae, now Inspector Chae, had told him about his new partner: “Young, politically connected, young, relatively inexperienced, young, and very intelligent. Did I mention that he was young?” She said, relaying gossip she had heard.

Politically connected, in this case, referred to the fact that Myungsoo’s new partner was the son of the police department’s current police chief. Chae even suggested that this new partner was promoted out of nepotism. Young, in this case, meant young even for a full-fledged detective. But the reality didn’t set in for Myungsoo until today how young his senior partner was, when he walked into the Gyeongjeong-dong police station’s detective staff room to see a young man with dyed red hair, leather pants, and a black winter jacket, playing on his phone while seated at the central table.

So Myungsoo cleared his throat and announced “Delinquents aren’t allowed in the staff room,” before turning around to see whether one of the patrol officers had let in this man by mistake.

“I work here.”

Myungsoo pivoted on his heels to stare at the man again, who continued to speak.

“Starting today. I was transferred here for a new partner,” he said, unzipping his jacket to show a badge hanging on a chain around his neck. “I’m Junior Detective Lee Sungyeol.”

Myungsoo stared. “You’re Lee Sungyeol? You’re supposed to be my new partner.”

“Is that so?” Replied the other man with a laugh. “So you’re the rookie, Kim Myungsoo? You’re a kid!”

Myungsoo narrowed his eyes out of skepticism, but said nothing, before taking the customary bow to his senior. And soon Sungyeol was out of his chair, putting a hand on Myungsoo’s shoulder.

“No need for that,” Sungyeol said, walking the two of them out the door. “Get me introduced to everybody else here, okay?”

Myungsoo complied, which let him immediately realize that his new partner was no ordinary detective.

The station’s commanding officer was remarkably amicable as Myungsoo introduced Sungyeol. Superintendent Kim, normally aloof, made a point of giving a small bow when Sungyeol bowed during their introduction. The second-in-charge, Inspector Heo, reached forward to shake Sungyeol’s hand with an enthusiasm that Myungsoo had never seen from his boss before. Such unspoken conduct from the station’s top officers made it clear to Myungsoo: Sungyeol was not an ordinary detective.

After Myungsoo had introduced Sungyeol to everybody, right down to the secretaries, Inspector Heo explained to Sungyeol how remarkably honored she was that the son of the police chief would choose a crime-ridden, dilapidated district like Gyeongjeong-dong for his assignment.

“There are so many more upscale and affluent districts you could have chosen, Detective Lee,” she said, though Myungsoo knew she had been exaggerating the state of thoroughly suburban Gyeongjeong-dong.

“Police officers need to go where the crime is,” Sungyeol answered. “I would be useless any other way. As a detective, I want to investigate.”

“Surely there’s a better use of your time? Perhaps at headquarters?” Heo said, as Sungyeol momentarily squirmed in his seat.

“If I was promoted so soon, everybody would attribute it to nepotism,” Sungyeol said. “If I don’t solve real crimes, nobody would believe that I’m worthy of promotion.”

Heo blinked a few times, and gave a small nod. “I see,” she responded blandly, before turning towards Myungsoo. “In that case, I shall put you hard to work. Trainee Detective Kim, I believe there are still a few cases left over that you and Detective Chae had yet to close?”

Myungsoo nodded. “There are plenty.”

Heo gave another nod. “In that case, Detective Lee, I’ll give you exactly what you’re asking for.”

 

—

 

There was a considerable amount of violent crime in Gyeongjeong-dong, but not many mysteries. Most reported violent crimes were solved, Myungsoo explained to Sungyeol. The unsolved crimes were largely limited to a spate of car thefts, a few dozen burglaries, and an increase in drug trafficking. The district was nothing like Imhoe-dong or Yeongbuk-dong, murder hotspots where police refrained from wearing their uniforms while off-duty to avoid criminal attention. For Myungsoo, burglaries were the most difficult, as they involved staying up all night to watch suspects.

“Detective Chae and several other detectives have solved all murders in Gyeongjeong-dong reported in the last twelve years,” Myungsoo said proudly, as he showed Sungyeol around the police file room. He pointed to a stack of folders in a section titled “Closed cases” where shelves of files were stored.

“Twelve years?” Sungyeol asked.

“Yes, there are no ongoing murder investigations in Gyeongjeong,” Myungsoo beamed. “If a case wasn’t solved by the responding detectives, the case was sent to Detective Chae. I helped in one of these investigations too.”

“What about cases older than twelve years?” Sungyeol said, peering around the room. “What about your cold cases?”

“What?”

“Your cold cases. Cases older than twelve years. You still have unsolved cases, right?”

Myungsoo stared as Sungyeol continued to scan around the room, before shaking his head.

“There aren’t many cold case files. I don’t know why you’d want to deal with them. This is an election year. If we have an hour of spare time we’re supposed to be on the streets dealing with petty crime.”

“What’s going to make the mayor look better than solving an unsolved case?” Sungyeol retorted. “Surely there’s something that even your detectives haven’t solved yet?”

Myungsoo gave the idea a few seconds of thought.

“There’s only one case I can think of.”

“Tell me about it.”

“There’s a murder case.”

Sungyeol’s face lit up. “Tell me more.”

Myungsoo sighed before walking towards a small corner, unlocking a file cabinet that looked rusted over. He pulled a file from the lowest cabinet, opening it to read it.

“It’s a twenty-year old case. The Lee Sungjong case. Twenty years ago, the Lee family house was burned down. The police speculated that there was some sort of murder-suicide involving the parents,” Myungsoo explained. “It’s a case that the initial detectives couldn’t solve. The case was passed from detective to detective for about ten years. After ten years we just closed the investigation.”

“Why was this thought to be a murder-suicide?”

“The father was an unemployed alcoholic, the mother abused narcotics, and there was a record of domestic violence,” Myungsoo said, continuing to read. “The police thought the father killed his wife and child and then set the house on fire to kill himself.”

““And why is the case still open?”

“The bodies of the two parents were found inside, heavily but not completely burnt. The young baby, Lee Sungjong, was never found.”

“So, no.”

“The child was two. He didn’t have an adult skeleton. The fire could have turned his bones to ash.”

“Did the police find ashes?”

Myungsoo continued to scan the police report, before looking back at Sungyeol and shaking his head. “No they didn’t.”

“And no evidence has turned to demonstrate that Lee Sungjong has been found?”

“No,” said Myungsoo, “but this is a murder case that hasn’t been solved in ten years. We have better things to deal with.”

“Murder?” Sungyeol smiled while grabbing the folder from Myungsoo’s hand. “Let’s treat this as a missing person.”

“What?”

“There’s no proof that Lee Sungjong is dead, right?”

“No proof, but he wasn’t found after his house caught on fire.”

“So he could still be alive?”

“Yes, but,” and Myungsoo was cut off as Sungyeol ran off with the file.

 

—

 

Sungyeol wanted to run off to interview all of the Lee family’s neighbors. Myungsoo had protested the case wasn’t worth their time. They reached a compromise where Sungyeol agreed to interview the original detective on the case, who lived only two districts away in Uiheung-dong. Myungsoo, exasperated but unwilling to cause a conflict with his senior partner on at such an early stage, agreed to go along.

“I know you want to solve this case, but this is your first day here and we’re already out of our home district,” sighed Myungsoo, leaving their police car as he trudged up the stairs of the apartment building.

“Inspector Heo agreed to this, didn’t she?” Sungyeol retorted. He walked at a brisker pace, his longer legs allowing to cover more distance in each step, though his leather pants limited his gait.

Myungsoo gave a huff. This partnership was already more difficult than he had envisioned. He looked up only to see Sungyeol stopped outside of an apartment.

“Here we are!” Sungyeol said, before pressing the doorbell. Myungsoo managed to reach the door by the time it opened. A thin, older-looking woman wearing hair curlers and a bathrobe stood in the doorway.

“Are you two boys looking for something?” She said, peering at Sungyeol and then Myungsoo.

Sungyeol reached into his jacket to pull out the gold shield of the Hyecheon City Police Department. “We’re police officers, ma’am. I’m Lee Sungyeol and this is Kim Myungsoo. Can we speak to Detective Shin Yoonsoo?”

“It was Inspector when I retired, not Detective,” the woman replied. “Is there something you want to deal with?”

Sungyeol nodded. “We’re trying to solve an unsolved missing-persons case and we wanted to talk to the investigating detective first.”

“Which case?” Min responded.

“The Lee Sungjong case,” Myungsoo answered. “A young couple’s home was burned down but their child was never found.”

The detective gave a nod. “Come in, both of you.”

Sungyeol stepped in past the threshold first, removing his boots. Myungsoo followed, doing the same.

“Would you two officers care for anything to drink? Water, tea?”

“We’re fine,” said Sungyeol, answering for the two of them, as they took a seat at the woman’s table.

She prepared two cups of steaming tea anyways, putting it before Myungsoo and Sungyeol.

“That case was over twenty years ago,” the woman said. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do to help you.”

“Anything you could tell us that’s not in our files?” Sungyeol asked, offering a suggestion where to start. “The case seems like quite a mystery.”

“How so?” Asked the retired detective. “It seemed fairly simple to me. Lee Wonjae, the husband, was a mean drunk, and violent as well. Pyo Choonja, the wife, was not much better. It’s a miracle they lasted together for four years as long as they did. It looks like one day, the father got up, stabbed his wife to death, and set the house on fire. The son must have died at some point before the fire crews arrived.”

“How do we know this?” Myungsoo asked, trying to fill in gaps in the story.

“The mother was found with stab wounds. Five to the chest, and once to the eye. The chest wounds would have killed her even without the smoke,” said the woman. She stood up and returned to her kitchen, preparing a cup of tea for herself.

“Was a knife ever recovered? With blood on it?” Sungyeol asked.

“No, but presumably it would have been in the kitchen, where the fire was strongest.”

“Was she alive when the fire was set?” Sungyeol continued.

“No, she couldn’t have been. The medical examiner said there was no trace of smoke in her lungs. She must have been dead when the fire started,” Shin continued, as she sat back down at the table.

“And what about the father?” Myungsoo asked.

“Of course there was smoke in his lungs. If he had been dead before the fire started, we would have kept looking,” scoffed the woman.

“Do you know if she fought back?” Sungyeol kept asking.

“Maybe. This was never released to the public because a fire destroyed some of the medical examiner’s office, but one of the deputy medical examiner told me that some of the slashes on the husband’s arms looked like they were from a knife. But she suggested to me that they were hesitation marks, and that the father set the fire when he couldn’t kill himself with the knife.”

“You’re certain it was a suicide?” Myungsoo added.

“Fairly certain. He didn’t have many reasons to live, you know. He had just been fired from both of his minimum-wage service jobs, he had suffered chronic back pain after an injury at his old workplace, his parents were dead, his sister had abandoned him, and his wife planned on leaving him.” The woman said.

“Wait, that wasn’t in the file!” Sungyeol interjected. “The part about his family. How did you hear it?”

Shin pondered the statement for a few seconds. “I don’t remember who said it. It must have been a neighbor. Lee Wonjae did not have many friends we could have interviewed. The mother, Pyo Choonja, was remarkably reclusive as well. Word filters out, of course. In a semi-rural area like Gyeongjeong twenty years ago, it would be hard to keep everything a secret.”

“We’d like to speak with the neighbor, if you remember who it was.” Sungyeol said, thinking for a moment. “I want to know why he would have killed himself. He had a wife, and a young son. That’s enough to live for.”

“And the son,” added Myungsoo. “Why are you so sure that he was murdered by his father?”

“What else could it have been?” Shin scoffed again. “Do you think he walked out of a burning house and changed his identity? It’s clear Lee Sungjong is dead. If I had additional proof in the form of a corpse I would have marked the case solved.”

“Could he have been abducted? By a neighbor? Or maybe he was sent to live with a relative? There’s no way the body just disappears. I think the child, or the man now, is still alive. I don’t believe he was murdered.” Sungyeol stated.

“That’s a farfetched idea.” Shin sneered.

“Did you ask any of the neighbors if somebody was interested in Sungjong? Or can you even be sure he was in the house that night?” By now, Sungyeol was in control of the conversation.

“All of his belongings were in his room, before the house caught on fire. Nothing out of the ordinary. There had been a burned meal on the kitchen table when the fire crew arrived. Absolutely nothing to indicate Sungjong had been gone from the house.”

“And did you ask anybody if there was anybody unnaturally interested in Sungjong?”

“I didn’t ask. Look at Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja’s situation. It made much more sense that a murder-suicide occurred. Do you think some stranger walked in, killed the parents, and took the child?”

“I think you should have eliminated the possibility.”

The former detective peered curiously at Sungyeol, then at Myungsoo.

“Which one of you is new here?” She asked. There was a pause.

“I was just transferred here,” Sungyeol said after clearing his throat.

The detective turned to look at Myungsoo. “And who is the officer who authorized this investigation.”

It was Myungsoo’s turn to clear his throat, and then he spoke too. “Inspector Heo.”

“I don’t know anybody with that surname. Must have been somebody new. Somebody who wasn’t in Gyeongjeong twenty years ago when crime was twice as bad as today. Don’t let the election rhetoric fool you. Crime is high now, but it was much worse twenty years ago. I had to schedule the use of police vehicles because other detectives had cases to work on. It isn’t a smart use of police resources to open cold cases now, the same way it’s not wise to eliminate every fortuitous possibility in a crime investigation.”

Sungyeol stared back at her, not letting his eyes narrow, and not relaxing the rest of his body. The two continued for a few seconds, Myungsoo watching uneasily from his seat by Sungyeol.

The detective blinked first.

“The neighbor who told us about the Lee family situation was named Ahn Sohoon. Maybe she can help you more than I can help you.”

 

—

 

“Did you have a reason to do that?” Myungsoo asked on the drive back. Sungyeol was driving, and Myungsoo was seated next to him.

“Do what?”

“Antagonize her?”

“Who? The detective? You’re still thinking about her? You should be thinking about how we’re going to solve this case,” Sungyeol smirked.

“She’s right though. Gyeongjeong twenty years ago was one of the worst parts of Hyecheon. And it’s likely that the son died in the fire. The police don’t have the time to disprove every possibility,” Myungsoo said, exasperated.

“But I’m right too. The son could be alive. The more I spoke with her, the more I’ve concluded she missed something. Lee Sungjong is out there, and probably alive,” Sungyeol snapped back. “I want to solve this case.”

“I don’t understand how you can be like this,” Myungsoo said, exasperated. “How you can be antagonistic towards other officers?”

“I come from a long line of police,” Sungyeol retorted. “I’m the son, nephew, and grandson of police officers. We all work hard, and we work well. Every loose end, leave no stone unturned. I don’t need another metaphor for you, do I?”

“I understand you want to do well, Detective Lee, but I don’t think this is going to help you in this district. We’re not in downtown Hyecheon. Everybody here is laid back. We like working together.”

“Even at the cost of finding out the truth?”

“We can work earnestly while being polite.”

“I was polite. I didn’t raise my voice to her, did I?”

“Politeness is about more than the volume you speak.”

The two of them continued driving, in silence, before Myungsoo turned towards Sungyeol again. “Where do you plan to go from here?”

“I’ll talk to the witness, and maybe she can tell me more about where I should go. And I’ll go anywhere I need until I solve this case.”

Myungsoo considered briefly the notion that, rather than being trained by this detective, he would be tasked with keeping the man under control. He shook his head at the thought as their squad car pulled into the driveway of a small, tidy one-story dwelling. By then, they had already arrived back in Samchin-dong, between Uicheon and Gyeongjeong.

“This is Ahn Sohoon’s house, according to what the secretaries at the police station told us,” said Sungyeol, exiting the car. He tossed the keys towards Myungsoo. “You drive on the way back.”

He walked briskly to the house, knocking on the wooden door.

Nothing happened.

Myungsoo by then had also exited, standing near the entrance behind Sungyeol.

Sungyeol knocked again. There was no response.

“She’s not going to answer,” came a voice from behind Myungsoo, and the two of them turned around immediately. There was a young man there, tall with almost shoulder-length hair.

“Are you sure?” Sungyeol asked. “This is the house of Ahn Sohoon, right?”

“You have the right house. But she doesn’t answer to strangers. Especially not police,” said the young man. “Just me.”

“How do you know?” Sungyeol continued.

“Just watch.”

The young man went over to knock on the door. “Mom, it’s me. Kwangbeom. There are two police officers here.”

A woman’s voice, surprisingly forceful if not very loud, came back.

“Tell them to go away.”

The man turned towards them, as if to humor Sungyeol and Myungsoo. “Could you go away?”

“I could, but that would only make me more suspicious,” Sungyeol answered. “I would need to fill out some warrants and have another unpleasant interview with somebody who does not like me, but I’ll be back and I will continue to ask these questions.”

The man gave a nod and turned back towards the door. “Mom, it wouldn’t be smart to tell them to go away. Please just come here so we can talk through the door.”

There was the sound of shuffling from inside the house. And the woman’s voice spoke again.

“I’m here, at the door.”

“Ahn Sohoon?” Sungyeol asked.

“Kwangbeom, tell them that’s me.”

The man gave a slightly disapproving huff before turning to Sungyeol. “That’s her.”

“We’d like to ask you about your old neighbor,” Sungyeol said.

“Is this about failing to separate the recyclables from the trash?” The young man said to Sungyeol with irritation. “I told the neighborhood watch that my mother would—”

“It’s not about that,” Myungsoo interjected, speaking for the first time there.

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about your mother’s old house. In Gyeongjeong,” Myungsoo replied.

“Gyeongjeong? I thought she’s always lived in Samchin,” replied the man. “I used to live in this very house, until I went to a boarding school for secondary school.”

“Could you ask her about her neighbors?” Sungyeol asked.

The man turned towards the door again. “Mom, did you use to live in Gyeongjeong? And can you talk about your neighbors there?”

“It’s too long for me to remember anything,” said the voice.

“Don’t believe that,” the young man said in a whisper to Myungsoo, “because she remembers everything. She remembers every single grade I received at my elementary school.”

“Tell her it’s about Lee Sungjong,” said Sungyeol. “And what’s your name, anyways?”

“Son Kwangbeom,” replied the other man before turning towards the door. “They want to know about Lee Sungjong.”

“I had nothing to do with that case!” The voice yelled back.

“You’ll have to forgive her. Her health usually isn’t very good. She gets angry, sometimes.”

Myungsoo nodded, as the man began speaking again.

“They aren’t accusing you of anything. They just want to ask about your neighbors,” the young man said, before turning to the two officers. “Who is this Sungjong guy, anyways?”

“Well then, what do they want to know?”

“Ask her if she remembers her statements to the police, twenty years ago,” Sungyeol whispered.

“Do you remember what you said to the police back then?”

“I only remember telling the police about how Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja were as human beings,” snapped the voice.

“Are you sure that’s just it?”

“Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja were people that shouldn’t have been alive. They didn’t know life, they didn’t know family. They were not people who should be missed,” said the voice inside, hissing at times.

“Ask her how she remembers this,” said Sungyeol, eyes wide.

“How do you remember? Did you know them well?”

There was another silence, the first since Sungyeol knocked on the door. Then the woman inside spoke again.

“What did the police say they wanted about Lee Sungjong?”

The man turned towards Sungyeol and Myungsoo. “What do you want?”

Sungyeol and Myungsoo instead turned towards each other, looking the other in the eye, and nodded.

“We’re dealing with a missing-person case,” said Myungsoo, half to the third man on the porch and half to the woman in the house. “Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja’s son went missing.”

“I think the police already have an explanation for what happened,” came the voice, speaking directly to them now.

“Had is the correct word. We’ve changed our mind,” Sungyeol said.

“Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja are dead. They’re not complaining.”

“The police can investigate crimes if there is suspicion of wrongdoing. No complaint is needed.” Myungsoo said. “We can investigate their case, or their son’s case.”

“What is there to investigate? Are you still trying to find the son? Is he missing?”

“Are you telling us something else?” Sungyeol spoke. “That you know what happen to him?”

“I think you’re wasting your time, officer. You have all of the facts you need.”

“We want to hear what you told the police before about the deaths of Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja.” Sungyeol had taken command of the interrogation now. Myungsoo only watched.

“I told them what I told you now. Lee and Pyo were two terrible human beings. Wasteful.”

“And their son?”

“Who?”

“Lee Sungjong.”

“The boy who lived with them?”

“He was their son.”

“No.”

“How was he not their son?”

“It’s not right to think of him as their son after they were murdered.”

Sungyeol turned to Myungsoo and mouthed the words “You heard that?” Myungsoo nodded, face serious, and turned towards the young man.

“Son Kwangbeom? Can you come with me for a second back to the sidewalk?” Myungsoo took the man by the shoulder, and received a nod in return.

Sungyeol kept speaking. “I never said they were murdered.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here? Why would there be a police officer investigating a missing-person case if two wretched scoundrels committed suicide? You must think they were murdered.”

“I thought you told the police that you thought it was a murder-suicide. That Lee Wonjae had nothing to live for.”

The following pause gave the woman inside just enough time to start scrambling for an explanation.

“They must have killed each other.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You have the file, right? Doesn’t it say in there how she stabbed him in the arms and he stabbed her in the chest?”

Sungyeol turned around. Myungsoo was there, and the young man was standing on the sidewalk.

“You’re right, it’s in the file” Sungyeol lied. “But how does it show they killed each other?”

“She must have stabbed him, and he must have stabbed her back. And then he must have set the fire to kill himself.”

“And what about Lee Sungjong? Would the father have just hoped that the fire would kill his son? How would we know the son died?”

The woman inside the house was silent. Sungyeol was silent too. He exhaled, loudly.

“Those are all the questions I had,” he said, turning to walk away.

When Sungyeol turned to look towards Myungsoo, he couldn’t help but smile, and Myungsoo smiled back.

They had their culprit.

 

—

 

The arrest came the next day. The physical arrest went smoothly. Ahn Sohoon reluctantly exited the house when confronted with the warrant. Sungyeol had her handcuffed and Myungsoo placed her in the back of the police car.

Myungsoo explained to her that she was under the arrest for the murders of Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja. He explained that she had a right to silence and a right to counsel. Sungyeol, however, made the later point of telling her she would have been arrested for the kidnapping of Lee Sungjong had the statute of limitations not run out several years prior.

When they had taken the woman back to the police station. Sungyeol had hoped for a full confession. Instead, the woman received the help of a very competent defense attorney who convinced her not to say anything further.

The resulting criminal trial took a considerable time to finish, riveting the city even during election season. It was soon resolved that “Son Kwangbum” was in fact Lee Sungjong and that the defendant had taken him from his home shortly after his natural parents had died, raising him without telling him the truth. Prosecutors argued that based on the defendant’s knowledge of the facts, her motivations, and her actions in raising Sungjong, Ahn Sohoon had killed both Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja, kidnapped Sungjong, and set the house on fire to conceal evidence.

Ahn Sohoon’s defense argued that police had misconstrued her statements, and that she had in fact witnessed Lee Wonjae and Pyo Choonja attack each other, saw Lee Wonjae set his house on fire and rescued Sungjong from being burned up with the house. Police officers, including both Sungyeol and Myungsoo, testified. Myungsoo considered it a welcome respite from the election season crackdown, where his twelve-hour shifts on patrol with Sungyeol quickly ate up most of his week.

Sungyeol, thankfully, never made it an issue that he wanted to pursue the case where Myungsoo was skeptical. And for his part, Myungsoo found that his new partner was surprisingly amicable and had the same attitude towards patrol duty. When they were on patrol duty, the Lee family case was their favorite topic for discussion.

Two days before the spring election, the three-judge panel overseeing the Ahn Sohoon case delivered a guilty verdict. At sentencing, the defense argued a lenient sentence for Ahn in light of the defendant’s poor health and mental state. The judges agreed. She received a sentence of ten years for each victim, for a total of twenty years.

Myungsoo heard the news not from the television or radio, but in the staff room of Gyeongjeong police station’s staff room.

Sungyeol had gone out to buy lunch, having grown tired of the snack cakes in the staff room’s vending machine, so it had been just Myungsoo who walked into the room where a woman, dressed in a black pantsuit and black heels had taken a seat.

“Police Chief Lim!” Myungsoo said in surprise, saluting the instant he recognized Sungyeol’s mother.

“That’s not necessary,” replied the police chief. “You did a very good job with the Ahn Sohoon case. The judges just pronounced her guilty.”

“Good. I mean, that’s great!” Myungsoo responded.

“And because of your good work, I want to ask you for something,” replied the police chief. “I want you to persuade my son Sungyeol that he shouldn’t waste his time here in Gyeongjeong. He should be working in downtown Hyecheon. At headquarters.”

“I understand Sungyeol has already told you, since you’re his mother, that he doesn’t want to work at the headquarters,” replied Myungsoo, trying to be respectful as possible.

“It’s been 100 days out of your 500 day mentorship period. In a year, Sungyeol will be transferred somewhere else in Hyecheon. You may or may not follow. At least convince him to come back to headquarters after his time in Gyeongjeong is done,” said the woman.

Myungsoo couldn’t help but give a small smile. “Actually, ma’am, we’re already having fun here.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, please forgive this base and inferior writer.


End file.
